A scenario is known in which a medical device monitors physiological patient data and controls an output of an alarm signal by means of a comparison of the physiological patient data with reference values. The alarm signal may be outputted here by the medical device itself, or else a request message for requesting the output of an alarm signal may be sent by the medical device to another device. As an alternative for monitoring physiological patient data, status data can be monitored, which indicate an operating state of other technical devices or partial devices on or in the medical device; for example, the falling off of an electrode or an increase in the pressure in a tube can be detected and indicated. An alarm signal can likewise be detected by comparing the status data with corresponding reference values.
US 2005/0271186 A1 discloses a system in which a central unit is used to determine, by a configuration of a user, which telephone shall be reached by means of a network at which times and in case of which occurring events, so that the telephone will then output an output of a signal or an alarm signal. US 2007/0229249 A1 shows a system in which an alarm is outputted in a coordinated manner by an alarm messenger, in which alarm signals are sent to different receiving units based on data of a data bank. Thus, a concept, in which a central unit is configured to subsequently send different alarm signals to different output units at different times, is proposed in both prior-art documents.